Trouble With Sweeney

You can’t really fault Joey Sweeney for not practicing what he preaches. The salon.com music critic puts his money where his mouth is on his band’s new disc, (I Know You Destroy), proving that the Trouble With Sweeney can do what, he claims, a lot of bands can’t. Sweeney’s wry literary wit bites from the start on opener "The Break Up,” a neurotic rambling about, erm, a break-up. The album sticks to the relationship rock format, rife with sickly-sweet melodies and rag-tag vocals that sound like Sloan belting out Springsteen covers. The only real weak point comes on "Karen,” a misguided ode to the Smiths that suffers from the band’s heavy American bent, otherwise, there’s lots of mix-tape material here for all you armchair suitors.